Sunday, August 12, 2012

Rule #9 -- Appreciate Both Sides of the Coin

"You don't know when you've hit a peak until you're coming down. And you don't know when you've hit a trough until you're climbing out. It's all good." - David Brent

In this 9th part of the 18 Rules of Happiness, Karl Moore talks about the duality that exists in life. Indeed, can you truly know what happiness is if you have not experienced sadness at all?

Life is full of opposites. This concept is one of the things we learn early on in school. When there's up, there's down. When there's hot, there's cold. In order to appreciate light, you must experience dark.

Opposites, right? But they exist as pairs. How can you indeed know one without the other?

Indeed, how many people want to experience only the good, the positive, and the happy. To be truly happy, you will need to embrace the duality of life experiences.

Perhaps it's time to stop judging individual experiences as good or bad. Simply accept them as part of your life adventures. When negative things seem to happen, just accept that it's the other side of the coin. It's part of the equation.